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AS THE OLD YEAR DIES, here is Pickwick's Almanac for 2013.
JANUARY: History is made as WOD Mod triumphs in FDC by-election. She reprises Thatcher's 1979 'St Francis of Assisi' speech on the steps of No 10 (Cafe)
FEBRUARY: Fenland newspaper editor ignores verified appearance of Jesus in Emneth, catastrophic earthquake in Walsoken, and 70+ virgin births in Leverington, for latest 'Supermarketgate' rumours.
MARCH: Latest version of scorching erotic best-seller is renamed 'Twenty Five Shades of Tholomas Drove' due to savage budget cuts.
APRIL: Jesus forgives local editor, and establishes office in Nene Parade. Wisbech Standard still leads with rumours about Whittlesey corner shop.
MAY: The civilised world applauds FDC's commitment to Libertarian thinking, as Wisbech Cat Refuge is awarded 24/7 booze license.
JUNE: Filming of 'Five Shades of Friday Bridge" moved from Dogging Park to New Bell Yard after FDC imposes 475% tax on all creative activity.
JULY: Evisons granted booze license by FDC. Crowds flock to buy bottles of 'Double Diamond' and pints of Watney's 'Red Barrel'
AUGUST: Cambs County Council caves in to pressure from WIN activists, and, overnight, installs dual carriageway along Tinkers Drove, between Lynn Road and St Michael's Avenue.
SEPTEMBER: After £4 million grant, derelict shopfronts on High Street are repainted to resemble a Lithuanian market. " A triumph for our commitment to the EU", says Tory spokesperson.
OCTOBER: Wisbech 20/20 Vision applies for free eye-test at Specsavers. Gets free frames and milk-bottle lenses.
NOVEMBER: The sexual blockbuster, 'One Shade Of Ollard Avenue' is finally screened at Three Holes Village Hall. after a delay due to the search for an adaptor for a round-pin plug.
DECEMBER: After snap local elections, all local councillors returned safely to office with average 312% majorities, after record 17% turnout.
I'm still here, still ranting about things, but not quite an Angry Young Man. That's a bit hard at the age of 72, but the fire still burns ....
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
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LIVING AND LEARNING TOGETHER
Much has been written, on this blog and elsewhere, about the vexed question of immigration. Some of the comment has been informed and reasonable, some of it less so, but it is rarely less than impassioned. One cold hard fact is not up for discussion. Thinks are not going to change, certainly in the foreseeable future. There is a queue of countries from The Balkans and further afield waiting to join the EU, and unless Britain leaves the Community or radically renegotiates the clause that gives people from member states the right to settle, then there will continue to waves of migrants looking to settle here, attracted by tales of comfortable state benefits, free healthcare and education and good employment prospects.
Regular readers of these pages will have read much criticism and friendly lampooning of our various local authorities and their sometimes accident prone elected members, but they can do absolutely nothing about who comes to Wisbech looking for a new life and the crock of gold at the foot of the rainbow. The inability or reluctance of the police to tell us what percentage of recorded crime is committed by immigrants makes for frequent and lurid speculation. We no longer have a magistrates' court, and understandably local journalists do not cover court proceedings in Lynn and Peterborough, so the once weekly round-up of minor offences in the paper is no more. It wasn't scientific, but at least it used to give some idea of who was doing what to whom.
My perception - and it is just that, a personal view - is that in Wisbech it is easy to jump to false conclusions about what immigration has brought to the town. The biggest impact on how we feel about it is caused by;
(1) A very visible minority of adult males who are jobless, and living in multi-occupancy housing.
(2) They are usually tipped out onto the street in the morning, and do not return again until the evening.
(3) There is a strong street drinking culture which impacts heavily in the town.
(4) Alcohol is cheap and readily available.
(5) Police do their best to combat this, but struggle for time and resources.
There is a national political debate about integration and language skills, and this mines into very deeply felt views which are often expressed with anger. Public services pay out huge sums annually for interpreter services, and still provide multi-lingual signage. The sheer numbers of migrants in Wisbech means there is little incentive for many adults to learn English, as they can get along perfectly well in their own language. There are two rays of sunshine in what appears to be a bleak picture. Firstly, as children of migrant parents grow up and go to school, they quickly become good speakers of English. If we are looking at the very long term, then their generation, as they become adults, will become completely integrated. Secondly, there is a minority among the adult migrant community who are very keen to learn English, and it is my experience of this group which I want to describe in the rest of this blog.
Since finishing a lifetime's work in education, I have been lucky enough to become involved as a volunteer at The Rosmini Centre. The Centre works in many ways providing services to both the migrant community and English residents. At the extreme end, there try to feed the homeless, and provide free legal and translation services, along with advice about health and financial matters. I have been at the 'happy' end of things, running guitar classes for youngsters, and sharing the a two-hour English class on a Thursday night. After years of hard struggle in schools trying to persuade reluctant teenagers that learning is a good thing, it has been a breath of fresh air to work with adults who, despite daily lives of drudgery in local fields and factories, turn out for two hours on a Thursday night, sometimes walking long distances to get there. The range of nationalities has been amazing, including folk from Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Spain.
Last week we had our Christmas Party, and it was a memorable occasion. I had prepared English food, but was overwhelmed by the number of people who brought in food and drink from their own countries. Wearing my other hat, we had live music from two of my guitar pupils, a girl from Latvia, and one from Lithuania. They have been playing for less than a year, but are both extremely gifted musicians. They played and song solos, and then we finished off by tacking the class "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" - in English, of course! The class starts again on Thursday January 10th, 2013.
LIVING AND LEARNING TOGETHER
Much has been written, on this blog and elsewhere, about the vexed question of immigration. Some of the comment has been informed and reasonable, some of it less so, but it is rarely less than impassioned. One cold hard fact is not up for discussion. Thinks are not going to change, certainly in the foreseeable future. There is a queue of countries from The Balkans and further afield waiting to join the EU, and unless Britain leaves the Community or radically renegotiates the clause that gives people from member states the right to settle, then there will continue to waves of migrants looking to settle here, attracted by tales of comfortable state benefits, free healthcare and education and good employment prospects.
Regular readers of these pages will have read much criticism and friendly lampooning of our various local authorities and their sometimes accident prone elected members, but they can do absolutely nothing about who comes to Wisbech looking for a new life and the crock of gold at the foot of the rainbow. The inability or reluctance of the police to tell us what percentage of recorded crime is committed by immigrants makes for frequent and lurid speculation. We no longer have a magistrates' court, and understandably local journalists do not cover court proceedings in Lynn and Peterborough, so the once weekly round-up of minor offences in the paper is no more. It wasn't scientific, but at least it used to give some idea of who was doing what to whom.
My perception - and it is just that, a personal view - is that in Wisbech it is easy to jump to false conclusions about what immigration has brought to the town. The biggest impact on how we feel about it is caused by;
(1) A very visible minority of adult males who are jobless, and living in multi-occupancy housing.
(2) They are usually tipped out onto the street in the morning, and do not return again until the evening.
(3) There is a strong street drinking culture which impacts heavily in the town.
(4) Alcohol is cheap and readily available.
(5) Police do their best to combat this, but struggle for time and resources.
There is a national political debate about integration and language skills, and this mines into very deeply felt views which are often expressed with anger. Public services pay out huge sums annually for interpreter services, and still provide multi-lingual signage. The sheer numbers of migrants in Wisbech means there is little incentive for many adults to learn English, as they can get along perfectly well in their own language. There are two rays of sunshine in what appears to be a bleak picture. Firstly, as children of migrant parents grow up and go to school, they quickly become good speakers of English. If we are looking at the very long term, then their generation, as they become adults, will become completely integrated. Secondly, there is a minority among the adult migrant community who are very keen to learn English, and it is my experience of this group which I want to describe in the rest of this blog.
Since finishing a lifetime's work in education, I have been lucky enough to become involved as a volunteer at The Rosmini Centre. The Centre works in many ways providing services to both the migrant community and English residents. At the extreme end, there try to feed the homeless, and provide free legal and translation services, along with advice about health and financial matters. I have been at the 'happy' end of things, running guitar classes for youngsters, and sharing the a two-hour English class on a Thursday night. After years of hard struggle in schools trying to persuade reluctant teenagers that learning is a good thing, it has been a breath of fresh air to work with adults who, despite daily lives of drudgery in local fields and factories, turn out for two hours on a Thursday night, sometimes walking long distances to get there. The range of nationalities has been amazing, including folk from Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Spain.
Last week we had our Christmas Party, and it was a memorable occasion. I had prepared English food, but was overwhelmed by the number of people who brought in food and drink from their own countries. Wearing my other hat, we had live music from two of my guitar pupils, a girl from Latvia, and one from Lithuania. They have been playing for less than a year, but are both extremely gifted musicians. They played and song solos, and then we finished off by tacking the class "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" - in English, of course! The class starts again on Thursday January 10th, 2013.
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| Inge organises some Lithuanian delicacies |
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| Mike is persuaded to try some fiery Lithuanian spirit |
 | |||
| Julija and Diana |
 |
| We Wish You A Merry Christmas |
 |
| The Class - July 2012 |
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
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WIN (Wisbech Infrastructure Now) is a non-partisan community campaign group, which is arguing the case for Wisbech to have a fair share of development and regeneration funds from the District and County Councils.
The campaign is supported by local business people, serving councillors, concerned residents, and The Fenland Citizen.
At a recent forum and workshop session as part of Wisbech 2020, many people attending were dismayed by the apparent absence of concern from Fenland Council about the derelict state of important buildings in the town, and from the County Council regarding the poor transport infrastructure in the immediate area.
WIN does not seek special treatment, just a fair share for Wisbech. If you wish to sign up for this campaign, or find out more about WIN, you can go these internet sites:
http://www.wisbechmatters.com
on Twitter @wisbechnow
email wisbechnow@yahoo.com
on Facebook at the WisbechNow page
Or you can pick up a leaflet from the following places in town:
The Oasis Centre
The Rosmini Centre
Any shops or businesses displaying this poster
WIN (Wisbech Infrastructure Now) is a non-partisan community campaign group, which is arguing the case for Wisbech to have a fair share of development and regeneration funds from the District and County Councils.
The campaign is supported by local business people, serving councillors, concerned residents, and The Fenland Citizen.
At a recent forum and workshop session as part of Wisbech 2020, many people attending were dismayed by the apparent absence of concern from Fenland Council about the derelict state of important buildings in the town, and from the County Council regarding the poor transport infrastructure in the immediate area.
WIN does not seek special treatment, just a fair share for Wisbech. If you wish to sign up for this campaign, or find out more about WIN, you can go these internet sites:
http://www.wisbechmatters.com
on Twitter @wisbechnow
email wisbechnow@yahoo.com
on Facebook at the WisbechNow page
Or you can pick up a leaflet from the following places in town:
The Oasis Centre
The Rosmini Centre
Any shops or businesses displaying this poster
Monday, 12 November 2012
Follow @wisbechevenmore
A SHORT AND SHAMELESS PLUG for another excellent Wisbech shop 'discovered'. I must have walked past it hundreds of times, but have never had cause to go inside 'Fancy Fayre' on High Street. My watch having died on me last night, I thought I would go and see if it was a dead battery. A lovely lady served me, made me laugh and had a winning smile that would melt a polar ice-cap. Oh, yes, and she also fixed my watch. All this for the princely sum of £3.50. Some things are just too good to keep to yourself! SUPPORT QUALITY LOCAL SHOPS AND SERVICES!!
A SHORT AND SHAMELESS PLUG for another excellent Wisbech shop 'discovered'. I must have walked past it hundreds of times, but have never had cause to go inside 'Fancy Fayre' on High Street. My watch having died on me last night, I thought I would go and see if it was a dead battery. A lovely lady served me, made me laugh and had a winning smile that would melt a polar ice-cap. Oh, yes, and she also fixed my watch. All this for the princely sum of £3.50. Some things are just too good to keep to yourself! SUPPORT QUALITY LOCAL SHOPS AND SERVICES!!
Sunday, 11 November 2012
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Another well-known local name was William Burall, a member of the Burall family who until recently were businessmen in the town. He was a despatch rider, and was killed near Arras in August 1918.
It is right and proper that Remembrance Sunday focuses on those who died, but it is important to remember that many men survived the war and came back to Wisbech to try to resume their lives. The last known survivor of the wartime Cambridgeshire Regiment lived out his final years in a Wisbech nursing home. I had the pleasure of meeting George White on several occasions, and in March 2000 he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by the French Government.
Another survivor was Bill Matthews. Years ago, his son lent me his father's diaries and a collection of photographs. Bill, like so many young men locally, joined the Cambridgeshire Regiment. He was a member of 14 Platoon, pictured here 'somewhere in France'. Bill (inset) is on the far left of the back row.
Bill's diaries are an insight into the day to day world of a Great War infantryman - described elsewhere as boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. He rarely waxes lyrical, but has a Fenman's wry views on those in authority. In one of his earlier entries he describes The Cambridgeshire's nastiest encounter of 1915 - at a place called Fosse Wood, near Ypres, on May 5th. Dick Walker, mentioned earlier, was a casualty of this attack, as was Percy Kitchen. Percy died at home, and was buried in the Leverington Road cemetery, but his grave is now lost.
Bill was injured just before what many consider to be The Cambridgeshire's finest hour in the war - the attack on the formidable Schwaben Redoubt in October 1917. His diaries end in late December 1916, and his son believes that he may have returned to action in 1917, but may have been gassed at Passchendaele, and finally invalided home. Bill married his childhood sweetheart, Annie, and went on to have a successful career in horticulture.
My favourite photograph of the collection is of Bill taking his son, resplendent in Wisbech Grammar School uniform, on a trip to France to retrace his steps.
What memories this trip must have re-awakened, one can only imagine, and I remember the beautiful lines from a poem written before the war, but so, so appropriate, by Geoffrey Winthrop Young.
"There will be voices whispering down these ways,
The while one wanderer is left to hear,
And the young life and laughter of old days,
Shall make undying echoes."
Some years ago I put Bill's diaries, along with the stories of Eric Gardiner and James Cole, into a book called 'Three Men Went To War' It was self published, and I no longer have copies for sale, but there are copies in local libraries.
WISBECH - REMEMBERING
On a day when the nation remembers its dead, it is appropriate to think once more about Wisbech and what was to be 'the war to end wars' - The Great War. Earlier blog posts looked in particular detail at men from the Wisbech area who died in the war, such as Eric Gardiner and James Cole. We looked at the eventful war of March hero, Harry Betts, and reflected with sadness on the many young men from Barton School who lost their lives. Today's post is rather more random, but hopefully still relevant.
The War Memorial itself was officially dedicated on July 24th 1921. Crowds lined the streets, and family members of the fallen grieved again, before trying to get on with their lives in the harsh economic climate of post-war England.
Crowds little smaller had turned out six years earlier to pay their respects to Wisbech's first war victim - young Daniel 'Dick' Walker, who had been wounded in Flanders, sent home, but died of his wounds on May 13th, 1915. He was interred with full civic honours in the town cemetery, where his grave can still be seen.
 |
| DANIEL WALKER |
Another well-known local name was William Burall, a member of the Burall family who until recently were businessmen in the town. He was a despatch rider, and was killed near Arras in August 1918.
 |
| WILLIAM BURALL |
It is right and proper that Remembrance Sunday focuses on those who died, but it is important to remember that many men survived the war and came back to Wisbech to try to resume their lives. The last known survivor of the wartime Cambridgeshire Regiment lived out his final years in a Wisbech nursing home. I had the pleasure of meeting George White on several occasions, and in March 2000 he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by the French Government.
 |
| GEORGE WHITE |
 |
| BILL AND ANNIE MATTHEWS |
"There will be voices whispering down these ways,
The while one wanderer is left to hear,
And the young life and laughter of old days,
Shall make undying echoes."
Some years ago I put Bill's diaries, along with the stories of Eric Gardiner and James Cole, into a book called 'Three Men Went To War' It was self published, and I no longer have copies for sale, but there are copies in local libraries.
Friday, 2 November 2012
Follow @wisbechevenmore
BREAKING NEWS! I am able, under The Freedom of Information Act, to publish the full text of the replies I have received from Fenland District Council, and my FDC councillor, about the thorny issue of the derelict Constantine House. I posted the letters nearly two weeks ago. Fenland District Council were very forthright..
My councillor was equally eloquent, and I fully respect his views. He replied ...
Now, either my first-class stamps were cunning forgeries, and the letters were undelivered, or....STOP IT....STOP IT !
BREAKING NEWS! I am able, under The Freedom of Information Act, to publish the full text of the replies I have received from Fenland District Council, and my FDC councillor, about the thorny issue of the derelict Constantine House. I posted the letters nearly two weeks ago. Fenland District Council were very forthright..
Now, either my first-class stamps were cunning forgeries, and the letters were undelivered, or....STOP IT....STOP IT !
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